


True Gritizens (Talk About Their Feelings)

by Princip1914



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Divinity Kink, Dowling Era, Drinking, Gritty, Gritty is the hero we need not the hero we deserve, M/M, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Flyers, Yo Adrian!, but extensive Gritty content, implied sex with a piece of public art, very minimal hockey content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24435148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princip1914/pseuds/Princip1914
Summary: God won’t speak to Crowley, but Gritty will.Alternatively, a demon goes on a bender in Philadelphia and some long held not-so secret truths come to light.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 47
Kudos: 76





	True Gritizens (Talk About Their Feelings)

**Author's Note:**

> If you [ know ](https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor%20rel=) then you [ know ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_27YcR9k94%20rel=).
> 
> Thanks to [TheOldAquarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOldAquarian/pseuds/) for betaing this piece at the last possible minute, to [curtaincall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curtaincall/works) for the photo edit that started off this whole idea, to the GO Events discord server for enabling the madness, and last but not least, to Gritty for being Gritty.

The commendation appeared on Crowley’s desk at the stroke of midnight, curling with smoke and smelling of brimstone. Crowley reached for it, thought better of it, and went to the kitchen to open a preemptive bottle of wine. You never knew with Hell. Sometimes it was _Lion King 2.5_ , sometimes it was the Spanish Inquisition. It didn’t hurt to be prepared, and prepared in this instance meant outrageously drunk. 

Thus, it was with an unsteady hand, several hours later, that Crowley finally reached out to tear open the plain, slightly singed envelope. Inside was an official commendation for a job badly done and a single folded sheet of paper which, when unfolded, revealed a printout of a twitter feed. “Honessstly,” Crowley slurred, clutching at the edge of the desk for support as the world tilted sideways. “You guyssss couldn’t have sent this to my mobile?” 

Crowley peered closer at the page. There was a grainy image of an orange monstrosity in a hockey helmet, tweeting under the handle of “Gritty.” The tweets were location tagged to Philadelphia, USA. Crowley had a vague idea about hockey (something brutal that Canadians did to one another for fun). He had a slightly less vague although no more accurate idea about Philadelphia (Crowley had, after all, enjoyed _Rocky_ almost as much as _James Bond_ ). He thought about shoving the commendation away in the top drawer of his desk with the others, letting “Gritty” fester there alongside the Blitzkrieg, Soul Cycle, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s _Love Never Dies_. But something--curiosity, boredom, some as yet unnamable emotional response to six years spent raising a child with his onetime enemy and longtime friend followed by six months of utter silence waiting around to see if the world would end--stayed his hand on its well traveled path to the desk drawer. Crowley looked around at the nearly empty flat, the clock on the desk counting down the minutes to the Apocalypse (less than a year’s worth of them now), the phone that stubbornly refused to ring. _Well, Crowley thought, why not pay the City of Brotherly Love a visit while it’s still there_? 

***

Crowley had been to Philadelphia once, in 1793, to clear his head after a somewhat emotionally compromising trip to Paris. In 2018, he was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a great deal less yellow fever around, and comforted to know that the streets were still as dirty as they had always been. Humanity really never changed. 

The statue of William Penn, standing proudly at the top of a City Hall which had not yet been built the last time Crowley visited, held out a hand at what had to be a very deliberate angle and height. Crowley nodded approvingly in its general direction and made a mental note to find the soul of the sculptor in Hell and ensure they received special recognition for their contribution to Tasteful Yet Obscene Public Art (Part A, Section C: Statues, Fountains, and Civic Monuments Division). 

Independence Hall also hadn’t changed much since Crowley had been here last. Crowley took the official tour, and sniggered at the bland patriotism of it all. The gift shop, which was a great deal more spacious than Independence Hall itself, was impressively demonic. Crowley bought a pen shaped like a bald eagle just so he could take notes for future wiles. He also bought a baseball that had been screen printed with a facsimile of the United States Constitution (to send to Hell for inspiration), a shirt bearing the slogan “Saved By the Bell” and a picture of the Liberty Bell (to wear in front of Aziraphale in the hopes of provoking Crowley’s second favorite smile, a sort of bitchy and judgemental curl of the lip), and a small statue of Rocky, raising his fists in triumph (sometimes a demon just wanted a souvenir). 

After the gift shop, Crowley wandered aimlessly west. The wind picked up and dead leaves rattled above him on the tree lined streets. Crowley ducked into an old train station that had been converted into an indoor market, picked through a spice stall, loitered in a candy shop in one of the cramped aisles, thought of culinary delicacies and pink lips closing around a chocolate, of a cultured voice saying _positively scrumptious my dear_ \--

Crowley walked out the market disgusted with himself and threw the delicately made marzipan heart he had purchased with no one in particular in mind into a trash can. 

He slithered in the general direction of the art museum with vague notions of posting a placard on a piece of trash to see if patrons would treat it as Modern Art. He was a bit put out to find that someone had already done him one better. A urinal, turned on its side and labeled “fountain” claimed a prime spot in the center of the gallery. According to a quick google search, it was worth more than two million dollars. Crowley watched as a gaggle of teenagers clustered together to take a selfie in front of it and felt a sudden jumbled rush of emotion. How could it be possible that there was less than one year left of this absurd little world? 

Crowley left the museum. Outside in the sun, a group of joggers came up the museum steps, then celebrated at the top in a recreation of a famous scene from Crowley’s second favorite action film series. Crowley considered miracling a pair of trainers to partake in the fun, then caught himself. He was a demon for Satan’s sake. He ought to have enough self-disrespect to lounge cooly in the shade while _other people_ made fools of themselves in the sun. 

***

Hockey fans streamed into the Wells Fargo Center. Crowley sat in the second row with his legs up on the seats in front of him, a speck of black in a sea of orange jerseys. He felt both disappointed and relieved. There was the usual roar of a large sporting event, the usual smell of unwashed humanity and hot dogs, the usual level of drunken disorder that could be expected at any large gathering ever since humans started having large gatherings. Despite the commendation he had received, he couldn’t say that this was any worse than any other Friday night on earth. There was nothing _wrong_ here and now, at least not anything more wrong than anywhere else at any other time in the long history of humanity. Crowley flicked his tongue out to taste a cheesesteak he hadn’t paid for and was about to head home and give this up as a lost evening (Satan forbid he stay and _watch sports_ ) when all at once, the arena went dark and a Revelation descended from the ceiling. 

He was Eldritch. He was Sublime. The orange fur of his mane stood out against the black backdrop of the arena ceiling as he floated in a majestic arc to the ice below. He was Terror and he was Awe. He was a urinal displayed as art. He was a surrealistic nightmare from which there was no waking and no desire to wake. Crowley loved him. 

Hell had been wrong. Gritty was not the work of Satan. But he was also not of Her, sitting in the pearly throne on High. He had been created by _Them_ , by the humans, cheering, standing in a wave of orange, chanting “Gritty, Gritty, Gritty.” Crowley stood too, tears he couldn’t be bothered to wipe away streaming down his cheeks from beneath his dark glasses. Crowley stood, and for the first time since before there was time, he _Believed_. 

***

Outside the service entrance to the Wells Fargo Center, in the cold Philadelphia night, Crowley waited for Gritty to come to him. The door opened and, like a dream, like a mirage, the monstrosity emerged in a cloud of mist and ice chips from the arena. 

“Gritty,” Crowley said. 

“Crowley,” Gritty said. Crowley did not ask how Gritty knew his name. 

“What should I do?” Crowley asked. “Tell me, Gritty, what should I do?” 

Gritty shuffled closer, ungainly and luminous against the light of the oil refineries next door to the Wells Fargo Center. His googly-eyed gaze pierced through Crowley as though he were made of glass. The knowing weight of it made Crowley feel as though he were back in Heaven. The faint smell of sulphur wafting on the breeze from the burning natural gas made Crowley feel as though he were back in Hell.

“If the world were ending today, what would you do?” 

“But it’s not,” Crowley gasped, seared through by the presence of the Sublime. “It’s ending in six months, there’s still time.” 

“For Gritty, there is no time but now.” Gritty laid one heavy paw on Crowley’s shoulder. “What do you want?” 

Although Crowley had asked many questions in his six thousand years on earth, somehow, this was the one question it had never occurred to him to ask. It had never occurred to him that he might be allowed to ask it. 

“What do I want?” He marveled at the simplicity of it. 

“Tonight,” Gritty said, “You live by Gritty’s rules. And Gritty says, there are no rules.” 

And then something happened that was neither miraculous, nor cursed, but felt just a bit like both. Gritty’s large paws were reaching up towards his head, Gritty was removing his mask, the human beneath it still shrouded in darkness. Gritty’s paws were handing the mask over into Crowley’s unresisting palms. 

“Tonight,” the human who had been Gritty said from the shadows, “you need this more than I do, my friend.” 

Crowley looked down at the mask in his hands, felt the rough fur of it beneath his palms like a benediction. Like a damnation. Then, in the cold light of the stars and the warm glow of the oil refinery, he raised it slowly above his head and Became Gritty. 

***

“More shots,” Gritty roared. The Gritizens of Philadelphia roared back. Gritty tipped the amber liquid beneath his mask and swallowed it down. The crowd cheered and drank with him. 

“I’m going to perform indecent acts upon William Penn at the very top of City Hall!” Gritty announced. “I’m going to make the Liberty Bell ring again! I’m going to run up the art museum steps and put my fists in the air like Rocky and I’m not going to care that’s not a very cool thing to do, and no one is going to stop me. I am going to do as many kind things as I like and as many cruel things as I like and no one is going to strike me down. I make my own rules. I am Gritty!” 

“Gritty! Gritty! Gritty!” chanted the crowd, and carried him in a drunken rush on their shoulders from the bar in Center City, past the flags of many nations that lined the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, to the foot of the art museum steps. 

The crowd was cheering, city employees were resignedly breaking out the Crisco to smear on the lampposts, and Gritty was running. Gritty knew he would be victorious, although he had not yet had his fight. Gritty was taking the steps two at a time, flying up towards the art museum like an avenging angel, like a bat out of Hell. At the top of the art museum steps, two wings burst forth from Gritty’s back and, although a close observer might have seen they were black as night, they reflected the golden stone facade of the museum in a spendor of orange. 

Gritty took flight over the City of Brotherly Love. Miracles and temptations flowed off of his fingers indiscriminately. He had no God, he had no Master, he had only himself and the whole city was his. 

It was the kind of power that Crowley, nestled inside of Gritty, swept up in this electric human creation, had not felt since he was an angel. It was the power of certainty, so long denied to a slithering creature of doubt. Crowley had a dim recollection from his time as an angel that the certainty he had felt as one of the Divine had been rooted in righteousness, in the idea that he could do no wrong. Tonight however, he was not righteous, he was fearless, which in its own way was another kind of certainty. Crowley knew that he was beyond pain, beyond terror. The world was ending in six months, the world was ending tonight; nothing could hurt him anymore, no matter how hard it tried. 

Inside of Gritty, Crowley thought of all the things he had always wanted to do, but never had the courage to try. He thought of desire, unquenched in six thousand years, a bright stream of love he knew he did not deserve--to ask for nor to give. He thought of holy flesh he had never laid a hand on, not even on the rare occasions it had been offered--a bittersweet, stumbling request that tasted, to a demon’s delicate sensibilities, far too much of guilt and shame. 

Gritty landed with a thump on Independence Mall and roared, “someone get me a bible!” 

***

It was three in the morning. A creature with a slim man-shaped body and an abomination for a head was pounding on the door of a bookshop in Soho. 

“Yo, Aziraphale,” the creature screamed. “Yo, Azzzziraphale!”

“Crowley, dear me, yes I’m coming would you just stop your--” 

Gritty-Crowley watched through the window pane as Aziraphale unlocked the door. He half fell, half stumbled over the threshold. It was so warm and familiar inside the shop that Crowley nearly burst into tears. 

“Ziraphale, I gotta tell you sssomething--” 

“Crowley, what is that you have on your head? Were you cursed or--” 

“Not cursed, not blessed,” the creature sighed and fell over onto the couch. “Jusssst free. Free to tell you--” 

“Are you wearing orange body paint?” Aziraphale interrupted. 

“They put it on me in appresss--, apprecisssh--, appreciathingy for my services to the city.” 

“What happened to your shirt?” 

“Dunno, got rid of it, didn’ need it, did I?” 

“And where are your trousers?” 

Gritty grinned, a horrifying rictus of a smile. “Asssssk William Penn why don’t you.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes raked down Crowley’s torso, and then up Crowley’s legs. Gritty noticed. “See something you like?” he asked. 

“Well yes.” Even through the narrow eye slits of the mask, even drunk on Gritty’s power, Crowley could see that Aziraphale was blushing. “Let’s…” the angel cleared his throat, “let’s get you cleaned up, take this infernal thing off.” He reached for Gritty. 

“No,” Gritty roared. “No, I need--

“--I need to tell you something,” Crowley finished quietly. 

“I’m sure it can wait till morning, let’s just--”

“I love you ssssso terribly angel, Ssso much, you’ve no idea, not a day--” the hybrid creature hiccuped “--not a day goess by I don’ think about it.” 

Inside Gritty, Crowley closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale drew in a quick breath as though he were in pain. 

“My dear,” Azirahale said, after a silence that rung loud and clear as the peal of a three-century-old bell in the narrow confines of the bookshop. Aziraphale sounded as though he had a head cold, even though he had never once been sick in his eternal life. “My dear you're in such a state, I don’t know if--” 

“Lissssten, Aziraphale,” Crowley opened his eyes and struggled up from the couch. “You don’ you don’ have to say anything ok. You’re not wearing the mask. You’re not free. It’s fine, I get it. I just needed to say--” 

“Stop,” Aziraphale looked like he might cry. “Stop it, you can’t--” 

“--say it once, before the Apocalypse, before this all melts into a puddle of goo.” Crowley finished gently. 

“There’s not going to be an Apocalypse, Crowley,” Aziraphale snapped. 

“And then what,” Gritty snarled back, suddenly ferociously angry. “The Apocalypse doesn’t happen and then what? We’ll go on as we’ve always done? You’ll say I go to fast for you, when we both know you’ll never be ready, I’ll always be one step ahead and you’ll promise to catch up, and it will never be enough for either of us--” 

“Oh your poor hands,” Aziraphale gasped suddenly. “What have you done.” 

“Grabbed hold of a bible,” Crowley said, swaying a bit on his feet. “Felt all holy, just like you.” 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale’s voice was thready, tinged with some unreadable, wavering thing. He reached out to cradle Crowley’s hands in his own. “I never meant to hurt you.” 

“Don’t mind it,” Crowley murmured. 

“It’s not-- I’m not--” Aziraphale’s fingers smouldered, just a steady, gentle throb, on the backs of Crowley’s already badly blistered hands. “I’m not worth it, Crowley.” 

“You are though,” Crowley said, a bit delirious through the haze of Gritty and alcohol and Aziraphale’s bare skin on his own. “‘S the most ridiculous part of it. You are worth it.” 

“Come upstairs,” Aziraphale said, staring at him with wide blue eyes. “Let’s get you sorted.” 

***

Crowley and Gritty lay on the bed in the upstairs flat and drifted in and out of slumber as Aziraphale--gently, ever so gently--washed the deep wounds on Crowley’s hands, dressed them with oils and wrapped them in soft cotton. 

“Blessing me with holy oil are you?” Crowley asked drowsily as Aziraphale rubbed the fragrant balm into his skin.

Aziraphale looked shocked. “I would never.” 

“You could if you wanted,” Gritty suggested slyly, waggling his eyebrows downwards towards an area where the orange paint was quite insufficient for the preservation of demonic dignity.

The bright spots of red had reappeared high on Aziraphale’s cheekbones and all at once, Crowley was remembering another night, more than fifty years ago. Aziraphale had knelt at his feet then, had rubbed the same oil into his burning soles, had wrapped them tightly in soft gauze the way he was wrapping Crowley’s fingers now. Crowley had felt powerful that night, too. After all, love itself is a kind of power--more certain, more righteous, and more fearless--than perhaps anything else in the world. But love came with something the power of heaven had never given Crowley and that the power of Gritty couldn't give him either. It came with something Crowley had had to learn, over six thousand long and difficult years on this hardscrabble, wonderful, absolutely absurd planet. It came with empathy. 

Crowley reached up with his bandaged hands and extracted himself from Gritty. 

“Oh there you are,” Aziraphale said. His hands were still pink from the warm water with which he had washed Crowlely’s wounds, his voice was incredibly fond, he was smiling Crowley’s absolute favorite smile, the one that reached all the way to his incredibly blue eyes, but he was not ready. Someday, he would be ready, Crowley knew, but not now. Not yet. 

“It’s alright,” Crowley said, reaching out to catch at Aziraphale’s fingers with clumsy, cotton wrapped hands. “I’ll wait a thousand years. I’ll wait a million.” 

“What if we don’t have a million years?” Aziraphale asked, corners of his mouth pulled tight in Crowley’s least favorite smile, the one that was frightened and sad but trying to be brave. 

“We will,” Crowley promised fervently. “We’ll make sure of it.” 

***

Crowley awoke to the smell of old books and paper and some indefinable, ancient, angelic scent. Before getting up, he turned over and shoved his face further into the pillow, breathed in, and sighed.

On the bedside table, folded neatly and smelling of angel, was a shirt which proclaimed in neon letters splashed across the front, “Saved By The Bell” over a cartoon picture of the Liberty Bell. Crowley pulled it on and wandered downstairs. 

Aziraphale looked up from his reading and his mouth crinkled immediately into Crowley’s second favorite smile, a little moue that was simultaneously judgemental and impossibly fond. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale said. “How are your hands?” 

“Fine I think,” Crowley lifted one and wiggled several fingers in the air. “Should they not be?” 

“Erm,” Aziraphale was holding a newspaper, Crowley noticed, not a book. “How much do you remember of last night?” 

“Not much,” Crowley yawned and stretched. “Went to Philly...some errand for Hell I think...it all got a bit mucked up. I remember being outside the shop, and then I woke up.” 

“Best…best not check any American news for a week or so,” Aziraphale said, turning red behind his spectacles. He folded the paper he was holding and with a hand gesture winked it out of existence, but not before Crowley caught sight of an image on the front page, a close up of a bronze statue holding out a hand which was covered in what seemed to be orange paint. 

“Hey, the way that statue's hand is angled it looks like--” 

“Yes, well,” Aziraphale coughed and his cheeks turned from a light shade of rose to deep crimson. “Shall we go to brunch? I’ve got a hankering for crepes…” 

“When _don’t_ you have a hankering for crepes,” Crowley sighed, but he was already snapping out a miracle to manifest trousers and a jacket. 

Arm in arm, the angel and demon headed out the door talking of nothing and everything. 

In the lowest drawer of the bookshop desk, where he had been stored by the angel for safekeeping, Gritty waited. Gritty waited for a time when Aziraphale would need him. As the world hurtled ever closer towards its Ending, that time was drawing nigh.

**Author's Note:**

> The statue of William Penn really [be like that](https://www.phillyvoice.com/how-uh-big-was-william-penn/).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Grit Your Teeth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441019) by Anonymous 




End file.
